Once again, Victorian Liberals caught in trap of own making

On Sunday, state Opposition Leader John Pesutto acted quickly over MP Moira Deeming, cutting her loose and condemning her actions in promoting and attending an anti-trans rights rally that was co-opted by a group of neo-Nazis.

Deeming has signalled she will fight against her expulsion from the Liberals’ ranks. But bigger questions rightly remain in the minds of voters about why she was at the rally in the first place, not to mention the party’s recent infatuation with the religious right and its overall stability.

Moira Deeming faces being booted from the Liberal party room after a move by leader John Pesutto.Credit:Facebook

Pesutto’s socially moderate program has been temporarily derailed as he attempts to unpick exactly what happened in the chaos outside parliament on Saturday. It is clear that Deeming, upper house MP for the Western Metropolitan Region, chose to endorse and speak at a rally in support of British anti-trans rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, also known as Posie Parker.

After a group of neo-Nazis attended the event, echoing some of the more extreme anti-trans rhetoric and repeatedly making offensive Nazi salutes, Pesutto chose to act against Deeming in the strongest of fashions and pledged to expel her from the party room.

He said this was not an issue of free speech, but rather that her position had become untenable given the rally had featured speakers and organisers “who themselves have been publicly associated with far right-wing extremist groups including neo-Nazi activists”.

He argued that the Liberal MP had associated with people whose views were abhorrent to his, the party’s and the wider community’s values. It was in some ways a strong performance and the first major test for the new leader of the opposition. Yet it’s not going to be that simple.

Deeming insists none of the rally’s organisers were involved with the men making Nazi salutes on the steps of Parliament and that those men had gatecrashed the event. She called the Nazi salute despicable and supported the government’s commitment to ban it. So what, exactly, was she being expelled from the party room for? It became increasingly muddy.

Wedged somewhat, Pesutto was forced into the weeds. He said the headline campaigner, Keen-Minshull, had previously shared platforms with white supremacists and that Deeming should have been aware of those associations. He also criticised Deeming for staying at the rally when the neo-Nazis arrived.

Whatever the facts of the matter, the Victorian Liberals are once again riven by internal division. Not only that, there will be fresh questions about preselection and screening processes as Deeming has never sought to hide her ideological light under a bushel.

Pesutto is now in difficult terrain. If he convinces the party room to vote Deeming out, the Liberals lose a number in the upper house and gain a disruptive opponent who has a free hand to snipe from the cheap seats.

That would still be the better option, for if Deeming and her supporters convince the party otherwise, and she remains a Liberal, Pesutto will have gained an enemy and suffered an embarrassing setback for both his leadership and his mission to steer the party back towards more moderate waters.

More broadly, this latest imbroglio is clearly an indication that the party remains distracted from the work it must do to actually become more appealing to the younger generation and the growing cohort of disaffected professional women.

There is more at stake for the party in that mission than a seat in state parliament.

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